cannabisnews.com: Medical Marijuana: More States Legalizing
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Medical Marijuana: More States Legalizing
Posted by CN Staff on December 13, 2013 at 12:03:16 PT
By Ryan Jaslow, CBS News
Source: CBS News
USA -- Medical marijuana has been gaining support among states and doctors, but one pot researcher points out much remains unknown scientifically about what medical conditions the drug can actually help.Dr. Margaret Haney is the director of the Marijuana Research Laboratory at Columbia University in New York. Her lab is one of a handful that receives government funding for studies on marijuana, including research on potential therapeutic uses of the drug. “I have no trouble finding volunteers,” she joked to CBS News' Kera Rennert.
But these studies are crucial, Haney points out, because carefully controlled studies on marijuana’s effects are lacking. When a new drug gets approved by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers have to demonstrate in series of studies that the drug outperforms a placebo pill to cause a therapeutic effect. This is not the case for marijuana in its plant form.“The testing is critical, because marijuana is the only medication that’s been voted in as a medication, where we have very established procedures for determining whether something is a medication,” she explained.Marijuana contains about 60 chemical components called cannabinoids. The most well known and well-studied is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is behind the drug’s "stoned" effect. Scientists like Haney are starting to isolate those other compounds to see what effects they have. But the lack of research hasn't stopped states from moving forward with legalization. Medical marijuana is legalized in 20 states in addition to the District of Columbia: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Other states are considering legislation.The medical community also appears to be increasing acceptance. A survey in the New England Journal of Medicine last March found 76 percent of doctors were in favor of the use of medical marijuana when presented with a hypothetical case of a patient with breast cancer that’s spread and caused pain.Dr. Sanjay Gupta publicly reversed course and came out in support of medical marijuana, and even apologized for being too dismissive of patients’ reports of symptoms improving.While medical marijuana is approved in some states for conditions including epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease multiple sclerosis and chronic pain, the scientific evidence has yet to catch up. Haney notes there is solid evidence marijuana can decrease nausea and increase food intake in people with HIV or cancer who are getting chemotherapy. This has also been shown with the pill form of THC, dronabinol.One experiment suggests one cannabinoid called cannabidiol, when isolated in high levels, might treat neuropathic pain in mice, a type of chronic pain that can be caused by HIV and chemotherapy. Research is also being done at other ways to isolate and deliver cannabinoids to patients, since smoking can be a respiratory irritant. Researchers have been testing a marijuana mouth spray Sativex that contains delta 9-THC and cannabidiol. It’s currently approved in some European countries. Such rigorous trials are necessary, Haney emphasized, to better understand how marijuana might treat medical conditions, if at all. Her tests include having people smoke real marijuana or a placebo so she can disseminate what the drug actually does for appetite, pain or withdrawal from what people think it will do.But since this research is very much ongoing, she warns people should not believe marijuana is a cure-all as some rent-a-doctors in states with legalization may suggest.“Just like you’re skeptical of a pharmaceutical industry and what they say a drug does, you have to be just as skeptical about what marijuana does, because people are making enormous profit from it,” said Haney. “That is again why we need carefully controlled studies to demonstrate what it works for and what it doesn’t work for.Ryan Jaslow is CBSNews.com's health editor.Source: CBS News (US Web)Author: Ryan Jaslow, CBS NewsPublished: December 13, 2013Copyright: 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc.Website: http://www.cbsnews.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/s2a0u7FkCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #6 posted by runruff on December 15, 2013 at 08:31:33 PT
Educating the law.
I pointed out to my lawyer; You can not make gardening a "crime" no matter how you politicize it. The worst you can do is to create a illegal anomaly identified as feloneous farmers.
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on December 13, 2013 at 15:12:42 PT
In Denver  
Denver cops barred from working off-duty security jobs at pot shopshttp://www.denverpost.com/marijuana/ci_24713153/denver-cops-barred-from-working-off-duty-security
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Comment #4 posted by HempWorld on December 13, 2013 at 13:40:07 PT
What A Pile Of Self-Righteous Bull...
"“Just like you’re skeptical of a pharmaceutical industry and what they say a drug does, you have to be just as skeptical about what marijuana does, because people are making enormous profit from it,” said Haney. “That is again why we need carefully controlled studies to demonstrate what it works for and what it doesn’t work for."Just why are people skeptical of pharmaceutical drugs... mmm... because they killed A LOT of people, and because these are invented, brand new, for profit drugs, that's why. Marijuana or rather cannabis, has been around as long as plants have been around and it has been approved medicine in China for over 5,000 years. Do I need to go on?Oh, yeah, 'making an enormous profit on it' are you talking about the pharma poison or cannabis? In the latter case, money is being made because of its illegal status, or; black market profits. This has NOTHING to do with medicinal or medical properties or let alone, recreational properties.Meanwhile, have cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, products that kill millions year-after-year, even innocent bystanders (children) in the form of 2nd hand smoke. Where is the FDA there? Keep testing Margaret and keep stupid!
Go Shopping!
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Comment #3 posted by observer on December 13, 2013 at 13:23:31 PT
Missing the Point, Agan
"but one pot researcher points out much remains unknown scientifically about what medical conditions the drug can actually help."Of course, never any doubt about the efficacy and goodness of jailing people for pot, no sir. In fact, jailing people for pot is such a natural, reasonable and logical thing, that jailing people for pot (the whole point of legalizing) somehow slipped mockingbird mainstream media CBS's corporate mind there, and they somehow forgot to mention this teensy detail of prison and jail for pot. re: "“Just like you’re skeptical of a pharmaceutical industry ..."More government road-apples dressed up as pate. We're "skeptical of" jailing people for pot, the very point of legalization, a detail which, somehow this CBS piece and the goodly government-funded (to find something bad about pot) doctor, missed in their infinite wisdom.Jail. Prison. Incarceration. How does the mainstream mockingbird government-approved media always miss the point so completely? Oh, never mind: that question answers itself. 
http://drugnewsbot.org
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on December 13, 2013 at 12:50:26 PT
Now, it's NEW.
How long do You think it will take Margaret to find out cannabis is not "new?" Will She?The plant has been documented medically for over 5,000 years. But never mind that.
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on December 13, 2013 at 12:32:17 PT
Not just "drug" "New drug"
"much remains unknown"It is good to also realize what IS KNOWN.Like, people should not be caged for using the plant. Like, it's never killed anyone. If someone has an illness and they want to use cannabis without going to a doctor, they should have that freedom. -As long as they have freedom.Scientists, that really translates to government (doesn't it) needs to catch up?? That's because they're in a position where people are through waiting for them to stop discriminating against citizens, waiting for them to finish playing their profitable government subsidized caging game.NOT WAITING FOR IGNOIDS ANY MORE.Keep testing Dr. Margaret Haney but don't for a moment think any results will make it ok to cage people who use the God-given beneficial plant.
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